


i've got the magic in me

by teacupfulofbrains



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Boys in Skirts, Fluff, M/M, also rated t for some salty language (AGAIN NOT REALLY), rated t for mild violence (NOT REALLY), that developed into an actual fic wtf, the voltron magical girl au absolutely no one asked for, this started out as a crack fic, vaguely defined magical concepts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 22:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13327347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacupfulofbrains/pseuds/teacupfulofbrains
Summary: Keith Kogane is sworn to defend the city from the forces of evil. He is not sworn to defend his commute home, yet here he is, trying not to set a train car on fire. Oh well. Shit happens. As long as no one dies, it'll be fine.(OR: the Voltron magical girl au that nobody asked for)





	i've got the magic in me

**Author's Note:**

> this started off as a short, laughable crack fic . . . that developed into an actual world with actual concrete magic rules   
> conceivably there could be another work, maybe? if ppl want? idk?  
> more things coming up soon   
> come scream at me on tumblr @blade-of-altean-lance (i'm admin pidge!!)

Keith toys with the red lion-shaped charm dangling from his cell phone as the train glides to a halt, bone-deep exhausted and ready to collapse into dead sleep for six days. He takes a single shaking step off the train, adjusting his messenger bag, when he realizes that he’s forgotten his jacket on the train. Heaving a slightly-over-dramatic-sigh (Lance must be rubbing off on him), he steps back onto the train to grab it when the doors suddenly slam shut.                                           

At first, Keith is only mildly annoyed – it’s fifteen minutes to the next train stop and then a twenty-minute walk from there to his apartment, but it’s an hour’s round-trip back to this station and then a five-minute walk, so what should he do? – but then he hears the screaming. When he tries to open the door, a black Sygil flares against the handle and throws him backwards. The other passengers on the train bang on the doors and the windows, but the Galra sigil prevents them from getting out. The PA system crackles to life, but the conductor barely manages to get three words out before a sharp squeal of static cuts them off. 

Now he’s really annoyed; he does not have the stamina to deal with any more magical bullshit today. Of course, this means that the Galra are going to attack his train ride home. All he wants to do is cuddle with Lance and sleep and maybe help Pidge beta test her newest game design. He does _not_ want to thwart the forces of evil. But the forces of evil follow no schedule except their own, so he just heaves a sigh and rakes a hand through his hair (which he will not cut, no matter how much Lance teases him about having a mullet).

Keith watches everyone push their way to the front of the train and hurriedly shoves against the crowd. The last car is empty, and when he opens his phone he’s almost embarrassingly relieved to see that he still has a few bars of service. He dials Lance’s name, hears it ring once, twice, thrice, and right as Keith’s heart drops into his stomach Lance picks up. “Keith?”

“Oh, thank God!” Keith breathes. “Lance, something happened on the train.”

“What happened, you had to stand the whole ride?” Lance laughs, and there’s a gentle teasing note in his voice that Keith would normally love to listen to for hours. But right now, he’s trapped on a train that’s getting dangerously faster by the second and he needs backup. “Babe?” 

“Something’s wrong,” Keith snaps. “There’s black magic keeping the doors and windows from opening and the PA doesn’t work and the train just keeps getting faster and I think there’s a Galra Sygil somewhere on this train.”

“Shit!” Keith can hear the muffled scrambling noises coming from Lance’s end as someone (probably Hunk or Pidge) asks what’s happening. “Keith, can you transform?” 

“I’m alone in the last car, so if I barricade the door then I can probably get away with it,” Keith mutters, bolting the door. “I still can’t get out of the train, though. What can I do from inside?” 

“We’re on our way. If the citizens on the train see you, they won’t panic as much and then the Sygil won’t have as much power! Do you think you can handle it?”

“I’m not the big PR-guy of the team, though,” Keith mutters, feeling his face flush. “You are.”

“Yeah, but I’m not there right now, and I believe in you, okay?” Lance’s voice is soft with reassurance. “Keep them calm, and we’ll be there as soon as possible. Okay?”

Keith grits his teeth and sets his jaw. “Okay.”

“I love you,” Lance sings. 

“I love you too,” Keith whispers, even though there’s no one around to overhear him say it. The call crackles out as black lightning encases the car, and then Keith is completely sealed in with dangerous dark magic and a slew of terrified civilians. He takes a moment to look at the home screen of his phone – it’s Lance, on one of the many occasions where he steals Keith’s phone and takes selfies. It makes him smile as he rubs the red lion charm between his fingers; it heats up in his grasp, and Keith presses it against his heart. The eyes of the lion charm glow bright yellow as he shouts, “Form Voltron!” 

Burning red light spreads up his arm and across his torso, encasing him in bright red. Keith concentrates hard on the happy positives of his life – Shiro’s encouraging shouts from the stands of his karate tournaments, the smell of Hunk’s flan fresh out of the oven, Lance’s arm around his shoulders and Lance’s fingers tangled with his and Lance’s face grinning cheekily up at him from the phone screen and Lance’s mouth against his – as the rush of power floods his veins like lightning.

He knows that every paladin’s transformation feels different, and he doesn’t know what the others experience, but for Keith, it’s heat. It starts out as a gentle warmth, like the summer sun, and it gets warmer and warmer until it’s unbearably hot, scorching, and Keith can feel his exhaustion burning away as fire curls around him, tearing him apart from the inside out. The transformation wipes away his exhaustion and replaces it with a fresh burst of magical energy.

Keith is never aware of lifting off the ground when he transforms, but he knows the transformation is complete when he feels his feet click against the ground. In the early days of fighting, the shoes’ slight heels threw him off balance; Keith’s much better at fighting in them now. The pleated red skirt swishes around his thighs when he turns to the door, and the lion hairpin is a familiar weight above his left ear. He opens his hand, a Fire Sygil glowing on his palm, and relief swallows him when flames dance between his fingers. He throws the Fire Sygil at the door, turns his face away when it explodes, and leaps through the gaping, sizzling hole where the door used to be. 

The first person he encounters is a little girl, maybe six years old, cowering under a train seat and sobbing. And Lance is typically the one they give lost kids to, because he grew up an older brother and he knows what he’s doing, or Hunk, because he’s “friend shaped” (his words, not Keith’s) and kids instinctively like him, but Keith is the only one here so he has to do something. 

He crouches down, peering under the bench, and she whimpers when she sees him, curling into a ball. “Hey, there, uh, little girl,” Keith says, trying to be as calming as possible even though he’s not much more confident than she appears. “What’s your name?”

She looks at him, eyes wet and shining, and Keith really hopes she isn’t gonna cry (any more). The universe smiles kindly upon him when, instead, she whispers, “Sophie.”

“Hey, Sophie, I’m –” Keith just manages to avoid giving away his real name. “I’m, uh, I’m here to help you.”

“I lost my momma,” Sophie sniffles. “Lots of people were running around and I was afraid, and Momma said not to let go of her hand but somebody pushed me and I couldn’t hold on and everyone was pushing and running and shouting and I was scared so I hid.”

“Well, um, I – I fight scary stuff,” Keith says, stumbling over his words and hating himself because he’s just trying to reassure this scared child and he’s fucking _sucking at it_ , “and I’m here to protect you. So – so if you come out, I can keep you safe, okay?”

He backs up, standing and brushing off his skirt, and waits for her response. For almost a minute, she doesn’t say anything, and it’s just Keith, fiddling with his fingers and scuffing his shoe waiting for a six-year-old. Then, finally, she scoots out. She has short, wavy hair, clipped out of her face with a plastic barrette shaped like his hairpin. “Red Paladin,” she whispers, reaching one hand into her pocket and pulling something out. Keith’s heart leaps when he sees it – it’s a hand-sewn doll, and it’s _him_. Whoever made it got every last detail right, from his thigh-high stockings to his pleated skirt to his ruffled sleeves to the bright red bow on his chest, and there’s a determined expression on his face and a little foam sword hanging at his side; Keith can even see a little strap on the hand where the hilt of the sword fits so doll-Keith can wield it. 

“That’s – is that me?”

“Yeah!” Sophie chirps. “Momma made all the Paladins! But this one is my favorite, so he comes with me everywhere!” Keith can feel the blush rising in his cheeks, and then he’s picking up Sophie the way he’s seen Lance do, settling her on his hip. It takes a few tries, but Sophie adjusting herself helps. “Are you gonna take me back to Momma now?”

“Absolutely,” Keith says. He traces another Fire Sygil in the air and reaches into the spell, thinking of his weapon. His hand comes back out holding a sword, a shining Damascus steel blade with a red streak down the center. Sophie pushes her Red Paladin doll back into her pocket and clings to his uniform with both hands. 

They make it through three more train cars before they encounter a Galra monster – a large, snarling, mutated wolf, dripping black shadow from misshapen jaws, eyes glowing brilliant red. Sophie doesn’t scream, but her grip tightens and her breathing picks up. Keith adjusts his grip on his sword and worries, because he can wield a blade one-handed but he’s not used to fighting alongside someone who’s defenseless. “Sophie,” he whispers, “get underneath the seat and stay there, okay?” He carefully sets her down, and she dives beneath the seat as the monster pounces.

Keith slashes at the wolf, leaving a long gash in its chest. Viscous black shadows drip to the ground as it lands, spins, and attacks again, and Keith manages to slice off a forepaw. The wolf lets out a terrible screech, and Sophie whimpers in fear, and the foot grows back. Keith lets fire spiral down his arm and encase his sword, and then he attacks with reckless abandon. He knows that WyldFyre would burn up this monster, but there’s no use wasting it on only one shadow when the train is probably infested. Not to mention, it might hurt Sophie, and that’s another thing – her fear is making this thing stronger. 

Lance would know how to soothe her fear. He could keep track of her, while Keith fought this thing off. But that’s not an option, so he improvises.

“Sophie, you have to be brave!” Keith shouts, even as he crouches and rolls the length of the car to dodge a bite.

“What?” Her voice is shaking with fear and Keith thinks she’s about to cry, and that’s the last thing they need. 

“You have to be brave because this thing is feeding on your fear!” Keith shouts, scoring another long slice against the monster, barely managing to bite back a curse when it heals. “But if you’re brave, then it’ll lose power!”

Sophie crawls out from underneath the bench and climbs onto the seat, eyes widening when she sees Keith’s flaming sword and the snarling shadow. She reaches into her pocket, and when the wolf looks at her, drawn to her movements, she shakes the Red Paladin doll at it and shouts, “ _I’m not afraid of you!_ ” 

The shadow snarls at her, but she just squares her shoulders, plants her feet shoulder-width apart, and says, in a firm voice, “ _Bad dog!_ ” The shadow tips its head, confused. “Very bad dog!” she says again, and Keith almost laughs when he sees the firm glare-pout on her face; it’s exactly the same expression as her doll. “Bad dog! Shame on you! Shame! Bad, bad dog!”

The shadow makes a weird noise, and the wound on its side, which had been closing steadily, begins to slowly reopen. Keith laughs, then, and Sophie looks at him, but he just smiles. “Good girl, Sophie! Keep at it! it’s working!”

And Sophie laughs, too, and shouts at a creature born of black magic and hatred and darkness, telling it what a bad dog it is, and Keith slices it to ribbons with his flaming sword. When it finally collapses, it dissipates into black smoke. Sophie high-fives Keith, tucking his doll into her pocket again. “I think you’re my new favorite,” he tells her, scooping her up again. She giggles, reaching up and touching his hairpin, and he smiles, and then they’re tearing through train cars again.

*~*~*~*~*

Lance sends a wall of ice curving along an office building with a flick of his wrist. A pale blue Ice Sygil glows in his palm as he throws it against the ice, and he steps onto it like a surfboard. A click of his fingers and suddenly he’s rocketing through the city, the Sygil creating more ice beneath him and dissipating it once he passes. The blue lion hairpin makes a beeping noise and suddenly Pidge’s voice is sharp in his head. “Hey Lance, your skirt’s caught in the back!”

“Might as well let the city get a glimpse of this _fantastic ass_ , am I right?” Lance yells, even as he smooths the layers of soft silk and fluffy ruffled stuff behind him. His skirt is short (he and Keith have the shortest skirts in the entire squad), but it’s multilayered and poofs around his thighs. Right as Lance manages to untuck his skirt, he turns a sharp corner and it flies right back up. 

“Lance, your skirt’s riding up again!”  

“Uh, yeah, Pidge, there’s really nothing I can do, so if you could kindly _shut the hell your fuck_ and let me do my job that’d be reeaaaalll nice k-thanks-bye,” Lance snaps. He’d regret snapping at Pidge, but he’s more concerned about Keith, trapped alone on an out-of-control train with panicking civilians that he, out of all of them, is ill-equipped to handle.

“I’m trying to do mine too, y’know,” Hunk says, and oh, when did he get here? Lance looks down and there’s Hunk, long, gauzy sleeves and long, smooth silk skirt flying out behind him as he sprints through the streets. Each time his foot pushes off the ground, he’s propelled forward several yards as the earth itself rises to his aid. Lance lets his ice swerve around an apartment complex, and the flashes of cameras in the distance alert him to the paparazzi. 

They get a fair bit of media attention, being magical girls and all. Shiro and Matt cluck their tongues and shake their heads whenever the new generation appears on TV, reminiscing about “ye olden golden days of yore” and all that nonsense in unnecessarily dramatic voices, but Lance enjoys the press coverage. It does mean, however, that he should adjust his skirt before the photography vultures see; he has a reputation to uphold as the photogenic one, after all. Pidge and Hunk are largely indifferent to the journalists that crowd around after they save the city, Allura acknowledges them as part of her duties, Keith avoids them at all costs, but Lance (usually) genuinely enjoys the attention.

He manages to get his skirt completely sorted out by the time he’s within range of the lenses, winking rakishly and even blowing a kiss to Shay, Hunk’s new flame, who giggles and waves at him. “From your beau!” he shouts, and even though the media will interpret it as him flirting with her, Shay knows who it’s really from and that’s all that matters. 

The flares of the lenses would be blinding, but after so long in the spotlight Lance has learned to look slightly above the press instead of directly at them. He surfs by, and then there’s a screeching in the sky and he looks up to see a large, misshapen, pterodactyl-type thing. They watched _How to Train Your Dragon_ last night, because it’s the only film that they all reliably agree upon, and Lance can’t help thinking that this weird Galran shadow is truly the offspring of Lightning and Death Itself.

“Guys, we got a situation in the sky!”

“There’s more on the ground!” Hunk shouts. “I need backup!”

“I’m on my way,” Pidge calls. “ETA two point five minutes.” 

“I shall be there shortly!” Allura yells, and she must have transformed, that’s the only way the barrettes could be transmitting her voice, but Lance knows she was in class (the one with the really bitchy foreign professor) and he has no idea how she could have gotten out. The shadow in the sky screeches again, louder, and dives down towards the streets – and the panicking civilians.

“Lance, can you –”

“On it!”

Lance draws another Ice Sygil, reaches in, pulls out a translucent pale-blue pistol. His weapon gleams in his hand as he lifts it towards the shadow. Lance takes a deep breath in and exhales it slowly, allows the ice welling inside him to spread out through the fabric of the universe and into space and time itself. He breathes the word, like a prayer, like a promise, and names the power as he releases it. 

“ _Sharpshooter._ ”

The world around him grinds to a halt as his ice slows time to a freezing point. Lance focuses on his breathing, slow and even and deep, and suddenly he’s staring straight at the shadow (not that it can tell). He focuses on its stomach, and a bright blue Sygil appears; when he squeezes the trigger, a bolt of ice tears through its abdomen. Unfazed by its horrible screech, he shifts his gaze to its wings. Sygils appear on each of them, and a final one on its forehead. The monster screeches with incoherent rage as Lance fires once, twice, three more times, and the death howl as it evaporates is music to his ears.

He’s careful when he releases Sharpshooter – it’s always a rush to the head, when the ice suddenly thaws and the world snaps back to regular speed. When they first started, he would have straight-up passed out, and he can avoid that now but he still has to be careful. He manages to avoid running into a building (the press would have had a field day with that) and swerves back towards the street where he left Hunk, weapon evaporating.

There are massive sections of city street missing, stalagmites rising to spear shadows with a flick of his wrist. Bright yellow Earth Sygils glow against the cracked pavement as chunks of sidewalk destroy the shades. Hunk seems to be holding his own, but he’ll need backup eventually, and Lance can’t stop because he has the best chance of all of them (and the most pressing need) to reach that train. “Where’s Pidge?” Lance calls. Before Hunk can answer, there’s a resounding shriek from the sky.

“On your above, asshat!”

Pidge is spread-eagled like a starfish as she freefalls from God-only-knows-where, and for a split-second Lance thinks he needs to create an ice chute or something to break her fall. Then he sees the signature glow of a Nature Sygil, and with a burst of bright green light she’s summoned a giant leaf parachute, anchored to her with vines. She glides down towards the city at her leisure. “This certainly is a shit-show, isn’t it!” she yells. “Where do you want me?”

“I need you to help Hunk while Allura and I go after that train! We can’t let them reach the civilians – can you handle that?”

“I can handle anything,” Pidge boasts, mock-saluting as she passes him, but Lance can see the fire burning in her eyes. “Hunk, coming in hot!” She maneuvers her parachute towards Hunk, angling skillfully around Lance’s ice, and when she’s a few feet above the sidewalk she lets the parachute dissolve. Before Hunk can even begin to call the earth, Pidge hits the ground in a crouching roll, popping up in a fighting stance. She doesn’t look threatening so much as she looks like Peter Pan reincarnated – a thin girl in a green tunic, brown pants, and brown leather boots. But Lance has learned better than to underestimate her. She’s the only Paladin to inherit her power from a family member, and it shows; Keith’s powers are vastly different to Shiro’s, even though he’d initially tried working with his brother’s charm. 

“Hunk, we need to box them in – defend the civilians!” Hunk waves his arms frantically as he corrals citizens away from the danger zone, and once he’s satisfied that they’re far enough back, he slams his palms against the ground. A chain of bright yellow Earth Sygils spring up beneath him, sealing Pidge in with all the Galran monsters. One of them attempts to leave, but the second its paw touches the Earth Sygil, a stalagmite shoots up and spears its torso. The rest of the shadows cast wary, snarling glances at the dissolving corpse before their gazes turn to Pidge.

Lance feels terrible about abandoning Pidge to a ring full of monsters, but he knows she can hold her own. Even as he watches, her hands glow with magic as she summons a weapon. Out of her palm shoots a long, thick vine, almost like a whip. With a short whistle, the vine sprouts long thorns, glistening with a paralytic toxin. Pidge cracks the vine-whip and shouts, “ _Come and get me, bitches!_ ”

Her vine whip slithers through the air and sweeps across the front row of shadows, nicking all of them. They collapse to the ground, paralyzed by the thorns’ toxins, and Pidge cackles. “That’s right, come _get_ some of this!” More Sygils appear beneath the Galran shadows, and suddenly there are vines appearing in their midst and strangling the wolves before they even reach Pidge.

“Are you two going to be okay down there?” Lance calls.

“These suckers won’t know what hit ‘em,” Pidge yells, but it’s not until Hunk calls an affirmative that Lance feels free to curve away towards the train. He pushes himself faster and faster, despite the exhaustion from Sharpshooter, because Keith is on that train and so are an unknown number of innocent civilians and he has to help them. He turns a sharp corner, taking a brief glance backwards to make sure that his ice wall isn’t taking up the entire city, and when he turns around the elevated white train tracks loom ever closer. He can even see Keith’s train – he knows because the entire thing is crackling with scary black lightning. 

“Keith!” he calls, tapping his index finger against his hairpin. “Keith, can you hear me? Keith!” There’s a crackling noise like static through an old radio transmission, but no response from his boyfriend, and then there’s Allura in his ear. 

“I fear the Galran Sygil is cutting off communications. Where are you – I shall board the train with you and destroy the Sygil!” 

“Just curved around the hockey center!” Lance calls. “Where are you?” 

“I am on my way down now.”

Lance looks up in time to see a bright white blur come rocketing down from the skyscraper’s top, and he has just enough foresight to enlarge the Ice Sygil before Allura touches down. Her hair fans out around her like a cloud, the pink and white layered fabrics of her dress barely disturbed at all by the intense winds. The midday sun glinting off her tiara, and Lance has never been happier to see her. “Hey there, Allura! Fancy seeing you here!”

She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling as Lance wraps an arm around her waist to steady her. He pushes them forward, toward the rails, and away from Hunk and Pidge and their Galran monster cage match. He can hear the excited chattering of the crowd, and he knows when they get home there’ll be approximately seven thousand different videos and GIFs and blog posts about the fight. 

“Lance, how are we going to catch that train? Can you use Sharpshooter again to anchor us to the car?” Allura asks, pulling him back to the matter at hand. Lance feels around his soul to gather how much magic he has left to expend, and he isn’t pleased by what he finds. In addition to making it onto the train, he has to retain enough energy to fight – or at least hold his transformation. 

“Maybe, but in order to have enough power to pull it off and stay transformed, I’d have to get rid of the ice shelf and the Sygil, and I don’t know about you but I’m committed to _not_ becoming pavement pancakes today,” Lance says. Allura looks thoughtful for a moment, and Lance can smell the power as she gathers magic to her fingertips.

“I will support us.” And there’s no time to argue with her as the train speeds by – soon it’ll be too late to do anything. Lance makes sure he and Allura are holding on to each other securely, pulls out his weapon, takes a deep focusing breath. He thinks of Keith, stranded on an out-of-control train with a bunch of panicking civilians, trying to do his job, thinks of the Galran Sygil sucking the life out of the city, and lifts his gun.

“ _Sharpshooter._ ”

*~*~*~*~*

In hindsight, Keith’s not really sure why he ever expected Lance to pull off a rescue _without_ crashing into him.

One moment, Sophie is shouting down a shadow while Keith, having already thrown his sword to impale another one, settles for punching it in the face (while doing his best not to flash and ultimately scare Sophie). The next, there’s a rattling noise from the roof, and suddenly a maintenance hatch opens and a blurry blue form crashes straight onto Keith’s head. 

“Ow, Blue, what the hell,” he groans, shoving him off with a well-placed kick. Lance looks a little woozy when he stands, but he pulls Keith up anyway. Allura, of course, floats neatly through the opening and lands softly, without knocking the wind out of anyone. Sophie’s eyes are bugged out, mouth moving in silent awestruck adoration. She reaches out, fingertips brushing the edge of Allura’s dress, and squeaks in wonder when Allura smiles and sits next to her. 

“Red, my man, how’ve you been holding up without me?” Lance jokes, and Keith sees straight through his attempt to dismiss his condition. He’s paler than he should be, his footing is slightly wider than normal, his smile just a little more forced, and when he pulls Keith up, his fingers are shaking. 

“Lance, how many times have you used Sharpshooter today,” he hisses, low, through clenched teeth. It’s not a question.

“Only twice,” but the protest is half-hearted, and Lance clearly isn’t invested in making it believable. “I’ll be fine, Keith. I’m guessing you haven’t used WyldFyre?” 

“Of course not!” Keith snaps. “I’ve been taking care of Sophie!” Lance spins around, where Allura is letting a bewildered Sophie touch the soft, fluffy cloud of her hair, and his eyes are glowing. Keith expects to feel a surge of relief – Lance can look after Sophie now, and she’ll be safer with him than she ever was with him. Instead, there’s a strange coldness, and it takes Lance turning on the charm full blast, to Sophie’s utter delight, to recognize it as jealous disappointment. 

“Why, hello there, little lady,” he says, and Sophie giggles when he does an over-exaggerated curtsy. “I’m the Blue Paladin, and this is the Princess, and we’ve come to help Red here save this train!”

“We don’t have much longer,” Keith says. “We’re getting faster every second. We have to stop the train, find Sophie’s mom, and erase the Sygil.” 

“Then we should not waste any more time,” Allura says firmly. Lance reaches for Sophie’s hand, but she hops off the seat and sprints over to Keith, grabbing his hand firmly. Allura and Lance both look confused, but Lance, undeterred, just reaches out again.

“Sophie, it’s not safe here, we have to –”

“I’m not leaving Red!” she says, and then she sets her face into Keith’s signature defensive pout-grimace again, and he’s never liked a kid more. “I have to shout at the scary things and prove that I’m not scared! Cause if I don’t, they’ll have lots of power and they’ll hurt him! But they get weaker when I shout at them and tell them I’m not afraid!” 

Lance and Allura are both shocked, but it’s Lance that cracks first and begins laughing. “Well, who am I to take you away from him? Lead the way!” He offers Sophie another sweeping bow, and she giggles. Lance slides his hand into Keith’s free one as Allura draws a white Sygil with a sweep of her hand. Black lightning crackles towards it, but tendrils of white light fend them off as Allura concentrates on locating the Galra Sygil. 

“The Sygil is close,” she tells them. “It’s in the engine room.”

More and more people appear as they move forward, and Keith is relieved beyond belief that Allura and Lance are there to talk people down. He and Sophie had encountered a few, of course, but he hadn’t done the best job of reassurance, too focused on Sophie. But now he has Allura, reassuring and diplomatic with calm, measured words and clear, precise movements. And he has Lance, a people person, all charming smiles and gentle shoulder touches. This leaves Keith clear to focus on making sure Sophie’s hand is secure in his as they push through the crowds.

Shadows appear as well, menacing people into corners and keeping them confined to certain areas. Keith dispels some of them with short, controlled bursts of flames, and some are eviscerated by the coiling tendrils of Quintessence curling out from Allura’s feet. Lance presses his hands against foreheads and chests and heals minor injuries.

Halfway through the train, they reach a woman whose breathing is a little ragged, and Lance takes the time to press a swift kiss to her forehead. “May the luck of Voltron be with you,” he says, and a faint blue glow envelops her as she breathes out. 

“Is it wise to give blessings so freely?” Allura asks.

“What else am I going to do with them?” Lance says, even as Keith sets a shadow ablaze. 

“It isn’t even that effective, not without her name.”

“I’m sure any help is greatly appreciated,” Keith cuts in, and Sophie presses against his side as they step into the next car. He scans critically for any resemblance to his tiny companion, but the closer they get to the front with Sophie still beside him, the more worried he gets. 

Finally, in the second-to-last car before the engine, they find a woman with short, wavy hair looking around frantically, calling Sophie’s name. “Momma!” Sophie shouts. Keith swings her into his arms and not-so-carefully elbows his way towards her. When she catches sight of Sophie, her worried expression melts as Sophie practically throws herself out of Keith’s arms and into her mother’s. 

“Momma, Momma, I met the Red Paladin!” she chirps, arms tight around her mother’s neck. Sophie’s mother looks up, and even though she seems extremely remiss to let her daughter go, she offers a hand out to Keith; it only takes him two seconds longer than a normal person to reach out and shake it.

“I’m Elena Sheffield,” she says, “and I would like to thank you for saving my daughter.”

“I’m the Red Paladin,” Keith says, eyes darting awkwardly around the train car, “and I would like to thank you for . . . um . . . making such an excellent ragdoll likeness of me, I guess?” Elena laughs, and Sophie waves, and then Keith is doing something stupid and impulsive. He cups Sophie’s face in his hands, kisses her on the forehead, and says, in the most serious of tones, “May the luck of Voltron be with you, Sophie Sheffield.” A faint red glow surrounds her as Keith’s blessing sinks in. Elena looks stunned, like she might burst into tears.

“Thank you,” she whispers, pulling Sophie impossibly closer. “Thank you, Red Paladin. Thank you.” Keith smiles, small and genuine, and waves to Sophie as he pushes through the car. Lance squeezes his hand when he rejoins the other Paladins, and Allura doesn’t say anything but smiles at him from the corner of her mouth.

“She’s a sweet girl,” Keith mumbles, by way of explanation. “She deserves a little luck.”

When at last they reach the engine car, they find it full of shadows, snarling and squirming and barely able to hold a stable form. The Galran Sygil crackles ominously on the far wall, right above the smoking control panel. “What we need is a way to take down all these shadows at once,” Allura says. “Then I can erase the Sygil and stop the train!”

“Lance, do you have enough power to create a shield?” Keith asks, reaching for his magic. Lance smirks, pulling Allura behind him, and Ice Sygils form a glowing line between them and Keith. Lance leans forward and pulls Keith in for a swift kiss before the barrier shoots up, a floor-to-ceiling wall of ice.

“For luck,” Lance laughs, voice muffled by his ice wall, and Keith holds onto the tingling burn of Lance’s mouth against his own as he summons Fire Sygils.  

“ _WyldFyre!_ ” he roars. Cartoonishly-red flames lick through the train car, and the shadows writhe and screech as they dissolve. By the time it’s over, Keith barely has the magical energy to stay transformed, much less summon a weapon or fight anything – not that it matters, since the car is now empty. Behind him, Lance’s ice shield steams away to nothing as they both rush through the car – Allura towards the black Sygil, Lance towards Keith, who’s feeling slightly woozy as he concentrates on not keeling over where he stands. 

“We did it,” Lance whispers, wrapping an arm around Keith’s waist. Keith hums, leaning into Lance’s warm embrace, feeling Lance’s skirt crinkle beneath his weight. “Pidge, Hunk, you guys alright?”

“The shadows are glitching out,” Pidge responds. “I assume Allura’s erased the Sygil?”

“Erasing now!” Allura calls, hands braced on either side of the Galran Sygil. Bright white and pink light glows at her fingertips, spreading across the Sygil. The inky blackness of corrupted magic steams away as a long, pained scream echoes through the train car. Pink lightning explodes along the outside of the train car, pulling it to a stuttering, screeching stop a solid six feet before the curve that would have sent it spinning off the rails.

“All clear on our end,” Hunk says. “Wanna meet at the café and refresh?”

“Sounds good,” Allura says. “Lance? Keith?”

“I need as much caffeine as twelve dollars will buy me,” Keith deadpans, and Lance laughs.

“I think that’s a resounding yes, Hunk. We’ll meet you there.”

(Keith ends up falling asleep in one of the shop’s plush armchairs before he can even place an order.)


End file.
